Advanced radio communications systems are being developed and deployed to provide wireless voice and data services. One example of such an advanced radio communications system presently being developed is that specified by the Third Generation Partnership Project, or 3GPP, which is an international partnership of telecommunications standards organizations. More information about the communications systems being specified by the 3GPP, including technical specifications, can be found on their web page www.3gpp.org, or from the various member organizations.
The proposed 3GPP system is a communications system which employs cellular-type networks to permit communications between fixed base station transceivers and customer transceivers which can be mobile or fixed. One of tasks such an advanced communications system must perform is the acquisition of a base station transmitter by the receiver in a customer device transceiver when the customer device is powered on and at various other times, for example to support handoff of the customer device between base stations. Acquisition of the base station transmitter by the customer device receiver includes many of the steps required for communication to commence between the base station and the customer device, including determining synchronization/timing, carrier offset and the initial phase of signals received by the customer device from the base station.
Due to the complexity of the structure and arrangement of the physical communication channels, multipath effects, etc., acquisition can be difficult and/or computationally expensive to achieve. As will be apparent to those of skill in the art, this difficulty and/or complexity can increase the cost of customer devices and/or can result in poor service, for example if acquisition requires too long a time to achieve.